to listen,--and the harsh judgment he passed on himself was not
altogether without justice or truth.

"I am an essentially selfish man," he would say--"I have met
selfishness everywhere among my fellow men and women, and have
imbibed it as a sponge imbibes water. I've had a fairly hard time,
and I've experienced the rough side of human nature, getting more
kicks than halfpence. Now that the kicks have ceased I'm in no
mood for soft soap. I know the humbug of so-called 'friendship'--
the rarity of sincerity--and as for love!--there's no such thing
permanently in man, woman or child. What is called 'love' is
merely a comfortable consciousness that one particular person is
agreeable and useful to you for a time--but it's only for a time--
and marriage which seeks to bind two people together till death is
the heaviest curse ever imposed on manhood or womanhood! Devotion
and self-sacrifice are merest folly--the people you sacrifice
yourself for are never worth it, and devotion is generally, if not
always, misplaced. The only thing to do in this life is to look
after yourself,--serve yourself--please yourself! No one will do
anything for you unless they can get something out of it for their
own advantage,--you're bound to follow the general example!"

Notwithstanding this candid confession of cynical egotism, the man
had greatness in him, and those who knew his works readily
recognised his power. The impression he had made on Innocent's
guileless and romantic nature was beyond analysis,--she did not
try to understand it herself. His name and the connection he had
with the old French knight of her childhood's dreams and fancies
had moved and roused her to a new interest in life--and just as
she had hitherto been unwilling to betray the secret of her